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Oral History Interview with Bettie Cram
September 14, 2013
Interviewer: Cyns Nelson
Interview Transcribed by Cyns Nelson
[Interview takes place at the Valdez-Perry Branch Library in Denver, Colorado.]
00:00 CN: Today is September 14, 2013. My name is Cyns Nelson, and I’m conducting oral histories with residents from the Globeville, Elyria, and Swansea neighborhoods. This interview is part of the Denver Public Library’s “Creating Your Community” project, and the oral history will be archived with the Western History Department. Right now I’m talking with Bettie Cram, a longtime resident of the Swansea neighborhood.
So start, Bettie, by telling me your full name, and tell me when and where you were born.
BC: My name is Bettie Cram. I was a Johnson before I married, and I was born September 18th, 1922. So next week I will be 91 years old. (Light laugh.) I grew up on a farm in Niwot, Colorado. It was just a very lovely time, and very wholesome, happy childhood. It was not a rich childhood. But growing up on the farm is very, very wonderful for children.
I came into Denver when I was out of high school. I had a few jobs, and then finally—the one job that I’m so proud of is: I started working with the railroads, which was a part of the Western weighing [?] and part of the Livestock Exchange Group. So, where they weighed the cattle and numbered the cattle. So I worked for the railroads for a while, which was very nice. And then I went on to work in different areas of the Livestock Exchange Building, and went to the commission companies who were kind of the middlemen. The farmers would bring in their cattle, consign them to a commission company—they would get sold—and we would figure the profits and give their money. It was a wonderful life. I enjoyed it.
The Livestock Exchange Building, which is now a historic building, had—just like a little city. We had our lawyers; we had our banks; we had the restaurants; we had the Western Union; we had our own radio station. A man by the name of Evan Slack—and I believe he’s still alive—was our broadcaster. And the lady that worked in the offices where we were—her name was Jackie O’Keefe—and it was a delightful time.
I worked there for several years.
CN: What time period was this?
BC: It was 19—I started work about 1941, and as—I worked there, then I met one of the local cowboys. (Laughs.) And I married one of the local cowboys. We raised two children—two girls—in this area.
CN: What was your husband’s name?
BC: Eddie Cram. (Pause for water.) We raised our children here, and in time, then, we bought a home over in Swansea, 4341 Josephine Street, which I still live in. He passed away several years ago. It’s been a delightful time. I work very hard, all I can, with the neighborhood. I try to give my efforts to the neighborhood. So it’s been a very fun time. Everything I do, I try to include in the neighborhood. I use all the local laborers I can. In fact, when my one girl was born, we had—there were a lot of doctors at that time in the Elyria area, and I had one of the doctors there.
Backing up to when I worked in the Livestock Exchange Building—it was for several years, until finally the live stock business fell down. When I worked at the stockyards, we would count—get the count—of the cattle. On a Monday we would get over 40,000 cattle in one day: 20,000 sheep; 20,000 hogs. In the fall, it was a wonderful place to work. Then they had the packing houses, and they would ship them right over to the packing house.
And then, finally, everything got kind of automated and it kind of changed a lot.
05:06 The packing houses, eventually, quit, because it got very modernistic. It was such a shame, because all of the workers in the packing houses and in the Livestock Exchange Building—most of the people were from this area. On their lunch hours, they would ride their horses home—and it was just a fun, fun time that I felt I experienced in those years. (Pause.)
After the packing houses closed down, Elyria really kind of fell apart.
CN: And when was it that—
BC: It was probably in the early ‘60s—so, they did work for a long time. But it was probably the early ‘60s that they ended. Everything got computerized—so, I worked other places here in the area. So I did always work in this area. I worked at one of the local Denver Dodge Trucks that are here; and I worked at some of the truck lines here. So, it’s always been business in this area.
As it went down—because the businesses went out so much, many, many people moved. And the stock yards were expanding at this time, so they took over a lot of the houses—made their parking lots. So it did take a lot of the houses. And a lot of the people moved out. But as I notice now, it’s a delight to see them. The family of these people that moved out are often coming back and moving into the same houses.
As time went on, in the area, they did build—in the 1960s—is when they built the first elevated highway, I-70. And it devastated, pretty much devastated, a lot of the town. They took out several houses. But it was a needed highway. It took about four years to build, and it caused a lot of chaos in the neighborhood. One of my daughters was working at one of the local stores, at the Josephine shopping center, which is still a working shopping center. She worked in the little boutique—little gift shop there—and it’s always been a delightful time. She looks back on that as a lot of fun, too.
I’ve always been—invested my time in the neighborhood, and therefore: One of our historic buildings is our church. We have a little church in Elyria, on 4729 Vine Street.
CN: What’s the name?
BC: Pilgrim Congregational Church. And it is still a good, working church. We have a wonderful pastor, and we work well with the neighborhood. It was started in this neighborhood in 1881, in a tent, where the Coliseum now is. In time, the wind blew the tent down, so the men of the church moved the church up on Vine Street. And it’s always been on Vine Street every since. So, it’s one of our historic places.
The other historic place, I would say, would be the Livestock Exchange Building—it’s historic. Everything else historic has kind of disappeared. We had a horse-and-mule barn when I was working down at the stockyards, that was a delight to work in, just to see it work. They had auctions every day—ran the horses through the auction—and in fact, the last horses from World War II, that were used in an army, were sold out—were auctioned off—at the horse-and-mule barn. Part of it was incorporated into one of the sales bars down at the stockyard area right now. So, it did find its home; and it’s still here.
09:58 Restaurants in the Livestock Exchange Building were great. I worked at one place called the Lowell Commission Company, and met many, many wonderful people that I’m still acquainted with. Many of the people that worked in the area have come back into the neighborhood, as I mentioned before.
Then, we kind of move on to Swansea, which was—at the time Elyria was started, it was plotted in 1881, as its own city. Then, in order to function better with their water and their electricity, they incorporated into Denver in about 1905. So it was its own city. But Swansea was kind of a little—how it evolved, I don’t know—but it was at one time—it is on the east side of York Street, and it was more or less just an area that had five dairies in it, and a lot of vegetable gardens. And the people that I used to know that were there said: “We could look over, and it was just nothing but beautiful vegetable gardens and the dairies.” In fact, up even into the 1960s, we could go to one of the dairies and buy raw milk. So they did have—the dairies lasted quite a while.
There was a man in the area that was called—started a company called Winston Waterworks, and he did wells. To this day, we are still having—some of these wells, that he dug, are still working in the area. In fact, there was a house that I visited that said: At one time, in our backyard, this well—this water—kept coming up, and they didn’t know where it came from. So they kept piling dirt in it until finally it stopped. (Laughing.) They filled it up. But it was one of the old wells from the Winston water company.
Part of the neighborhood is still here. It has changed so much. Swansea, after the dairies kind of stopped, they started building the new homes. There are a lot of older homes over there now; but they started building the new homes in the 1940s. As they build block by block, it was very interesting—because even at that time, people would buy the home, build a home, and they would have their own cows in their backyard. It was very much of a farmers’ area, still.
Then (pause) as we went on with the building—life went on, everything was fine, and then they built the highway—as I mentioned, one other time—in the 1960s. And it kind of split the town to a degree, but we survived. And now they are talking about rebuilding it, because the present viaduct is deteriorating. So they now want to build a new one, which is going to be a recessed area—which I am very much against, and I am fighting.
The recessed area will be 30-foot deep. It will start in Brighton Boulevard and it will go clear to Colorado Boulevard, and there will be no exits. So I am really against having this recessed. But, they’re going to build it.
CN: Your—that’s determined, for sure?
BC: That’s quite determined, for sure—even if I keep fighting with them. But I—so far, I say, the fat lady has not sung. (Laughs.) So, I am still fighting it. But they’re going to have to have all the local roads—as it is, the local roads run underneath the viaduct, so it works out perfect. But they’re going to have to have local roads on the side, because this new viaduct will be—new recessed road will be a good, over 10 lanes wide, which will take up almost to the library here [referring to location of interview]. So it will be a lot of difference in the neighborhood, and there will be a lot of changes.
I have been really trying to put my input in, because I feel like the neighborhood needs to stay historic; it needs to keep its own heritage; and by putting all of these new roads in, we are really ruining a lot of things. I feel that we need to keep our present growth as it is.
The one thing that I feel is our future will be—we have to keep that—I’m very thrilled that we’re going to have an RTD stop. It is a first of seven stops; ours will be at our local post office, and it will go north almost to Longmont. So it will be very beneficial to this area.
15:20 CN: Is that the light rail? Or?
BC: Light rail, yes. It will be a light rail. And then we will have—that is one of our big pluses, that we have to build our neighborhood with. They also have (pause) the National Western Stock Show—I am very, very proud of them—they have told me—Paul (thinking), I can’t think of his last name. The CEO of the stock show has told me personally: I’m so proud; I’m going to tell you something you’ll be happy to hear—we’re going to be here for another 107 years. (Laughs.) So that’s going to be good. And we’re going to help build on that.
They had a meeting the other night—they have incorporated a lot of people from CSU, and the veterinary works, and the businesses that they have there, with the horses—they are going to bring some of their business here. That will be a plus; so that will help build our area. So we have to focus on that. And that’s why I say: We have to keep this place historic. And that’s why I—I don’t want to build all these condos. They keep saying, “Oh, we’re going to build condos.” I say: Oh—no, no, no! (laughing) No condos!
And another thing that I’m very happy to hear is that we have a bonanza [?] in the Platte River—if it isn’t overflowing. So in time, in the future—and they haven’t even told me this—that they are going to have a river walk, like San Antonio. We’re going to have our own river walk down in the area. And that will be great. So, we have to focus on all of that. [Looking at notes.]
CN: I’d like to—well, let’s back up just a little bit, and you tell me what YOU would like to happen with the I-70 viaduct. SOMETHING has to happen.
BC: I want them to rebuild a viaduct and then still have the local traffic underneath it, just as they do it now. But, they insist I am wrong. (Laughs.) And I think they’re fighting me because they know I want it so bad! (Laughing.)
We had—I’ve raised the two girls here—it was a very delightful time, raising my children here. Elyria had their own little swimming pool; local people were the—Don Easter was his name, and he was our lifeguard all the time. We ALL took swimming lessons there. It was the place to go—except, the children got to where they destroyed it. We have—we have hard time in this neighborhood, because there IS a group of children that are just, a little destructive.
Well, when we started building Swansea, and it started building up in the 1940s, it was a very low income, and nice homes that were affordable. And because of that, then in about 2000, we started having an influx of the people from Mexico. And it was very hard on the neighborhood. They started moving in, and they would buy a home—put in three or four families in there—and the word went out that they were going to make a “little Mexico” out of it. The neighborhood fought back. And, I’m very proud of them, that they did. We’ve assimilated now, and it’s working out fine. We see no clothes hanging on the fences and on the trees, as we had before, [as] it would be in Mexico.
So, they have assimilated, and I think it’s because the children have gotten—grown up in this area, and realize that this has to be. I have a hard time with the people that refuse to assimilate and learn English. This IS the United States, and we want to work with them as much as they can, but I feel that they have to work with us, also. So that has been—
19:55 But it IS working out. And we’re having a lot of Denver planning meetings, where we’re planning the city; we’re having a lot of RTD meetings; we’re having a lot of National Western Stock Show meetings. I have written that I want to be a part of them, but at my age, I don’t want to take a four-year commitment. (Laughs.) But it’s been very exciting, living here.
If they do build their recessed road, as they do want, it’s going to take over 60 more homes out of this area. Plus it’s going to have a lot of our land that’s destroyed. I feel like we have to keep it as historic as we can.
CN: Uh-huh. [Bettie whispers: “That’s about all.”] For people who have never been to your neighborhood—and plenty of people cruise on I-70 without having an opportunity to visit your neighborhood—describe it for me. Tell me—
BC: The neighborhood?
CN: Yes, exactly: What you see, what you hear, all of that.
BC: Okay. I love the neighborhood. It is—they call us depressed, but I don’t believe so. We are just a very—everybody gets along fine, it’s a great neighborhood. You talk about the sounds of the neighborhood? One of the sounds of the neighborhood is the fact that we have a lot little fruit, drink carts—they’re selling mangos—they put the mangos on, and then they put the chili pepper on top of that. It’s a delight. They have a lot of little carts running around. All the restaurants are all Spanish food.
They have—so what we are working, when we get more building, that we are going to incorporate a lot more things. We have no good shopping here—no Safeway store. We are working for that. And we are working toward more—Josephine Shopping Center, the gentleman that owns that, I work with him a lot. He wants to build his shopping center. But with the highway, not knowing what’s going to happen, it’s very hard. Because it’s going to be at least four years before they even—TWO years before they even get started on this, and then probably another five years before they even get it built. So it’s very hard.
But people are keeping their homes, and they’re moving—like I mentioned before—the families are moving back in here, that once moved out, they’re moving back in here. To my word, to my feeling, it is not a depressed area. I think it’s a very amiable neighborhood that—everybody gets along. We have no problems. There’s a lot of Spanish-speaking; but that’s what we have, and it’s a delight to hear it.
We just—I feel very privileged that I live in this area. We’ve had—one of our old buildings is Purina Mills, which has been here almost 100 years. And we have several businesses—Eaton Metal has been here about 100 years. So there have been a lot of historic things here, that we want to keep, and we work with them.
I raised all my children—had a very wonderful childhood here. We went from Swansea Rec Center—Swansea School—to Cole School, to Manual School. So, it’s nice that we—I think it’s great that we have togetherness with this neighborhood, a lot.
CN: Tell me all of the specific activities that YOU have been involved in the neighborhood. You mentioned your church—what other kinds of activities have YOU specifically been involved in.
BC: We have a neighborhood association that we’re working with. It’s helping the people. It’s—we have a building called the Focus Points, and they’re working a lot with the people in the area. We have a lot of our meetings at the Focus Points. Our church was built—I was telling you, the Protestant church was built in 1881. And then we have the Catholic church—Our Lady of Grace Church—which was built in the 1950s. There are a few other smaller churches in the area that have come up since. But it’s a very included neighborhood for keeping everything in its own area, here.
25:00 CN: What do you do for your social activities?
BC: I think I go to a lot of meetings! (Laughs.) A lot of meetings. We have—we have the Swansea Rec Center, Rec Center. We do have that. But, as far as—and that’s why, at one time, years ago, when Elyria was first platted in 1881, it was a very busy town. They had a lot of theater work here; we’ve had, some of our famous boxers was here, were born here. (Whispers: “I can’t think of his name!”) And we have—one of the best bare-fisted fighter that was very prominent here. I can give you the names later, if you need. But they grew up in this neighborhood.
And the man that used to have “Tool Time” [referring to television program], he grew up in this neighborhood. We do have people that we’re very proud of, that they were from this neighborhood. So, that’s why I would like to have this neighborhood revert to its past history, where we had a lot of businesses going on here that were neighborhood; a lot restaurants. And we’ll have our own little shopping area. I’m very privileged to be here.
CN: How do you balance wanting the neighborhood to remain historic with inevitable changes?
BC: Yes. That’s going to be very hard. I will, hopefully, think that the National Western Stock Show will help us with that part.
CN: Say more about what the plans are for that—that YOU know about.
BC: The National Western? Um, they’re going to expand. They were going to move at one time, because they need more acreage and everything is getting older. But they have decided they’re going to stay. And they’re going to expand into the area to the north of us, which is actually the boundary of Denver County. So it’s actually a boundary which is very important to us. Then they’re going to expand to the west and have a lot of their cattle down there. Hopefully it will build up our area. So great.
The only one thing that we’re having trouble with right now is the fact that we’ve got at least nine marijuana places within walking distance of this very area, here. And, it’s—people that do not like that. We’re working hard, but we haven’t gotten rid of them yet. (Laughs.)
[Whispers: “Can’t think of anything else.”]
CN: So, you’ve talked about some of the central issues. And, the future—what you would like to see in the future. Tell me what you think defines this neighborhood. Again, imagining somebody who has never been here, what they need to know about.
BC: People say: “Where is Elyria?” They don’t know where it is. And, they associate it as being part of Globeville. We’re completely different. Globeville is its own entity—they platted into the Denver, as a city, about the same time as Elyria did. And then they went into the Denver area about the same time Elyria did, also. But, Globeville has grown more. And then, we have Elyria as a small area—which, we are proud of, is the home of the National Western Stock Show.
And then Swansea is—kind of just grew on its own. It was—I had mentioned before—it was all dairies, and it is now all homes; and it’s very, very industrial around here. One thing that’s hard to determine, which, we should go industrial—because of the city, they like the taxes with the industrial part, more. So, we are having thoughts about what is best for the neighborhood.
Like I mentioned, we have a planning committee that’s working with us. So we have monthly meetings on all of this. We have lots of meetings.
30:00 The Swansea Rec Center is a main entertainment; the children do a lot there. They have a lot of games; they have basketball, they play a lot of tournaments there. There’s not too much for the seniors; it’s a little hard right now to seem to get the neighborhood together to build a big rec center. We just have not been able to do that. Why, I don’t know.
CN: Tell me what you’re doing this afternoon.
BC: (Thinking.)
CN: You mentioned, on the phone, that there is a bazaar, or something?
BC: Well, there was. But we had to cancel it, because of the weather. [Reference to historic rainfall that caused flooding throughout Colorado.] We—it was at our church—we were going to have a children’s bazaar.
CN: Oh. I wanted to hear what that was about.
BC: Yes. And we had to cancel it. We had some people coming in from Fort Collins to help us. And of course, they can’t even hardly get out of town. So, with the weather so bad—and we thought it was going to rain now, which, it may still rain today. So, we did cancel it.
CN: Oh. That’s too bad.
BC: I have worked in the neighborhood by being an Avon Lady for 25 years (laughs). So, I’m pretty well acquainted with most of the people in the neighborhood. And it has been, very much, a fun time for me.
CN: Name some of the people who you’ve been acquainted with over the years.
BC: (Thinking.) There’s the Damian family, who is in the Elyria neighborhood; the—I can’t think of any special, big families—Montoya family. Um, there’s people from the neighborhood that are working: The Arevalo [?] family; the Portales family. It’s just, a lot of people that I really enjoy the friendship of.
CN: So, you started to tell me what you think defines Elyria. Anything else to say on that?
BC: Well, Elyria?
CN: And Swansea.
BC: And Swansea. I think it’s integrated to the point where we’re very assimilated together, now. It’s working out fine. But they do request—and the people that come to the meetings say—we need more English-speaking things in the neighborhood. We need more stores, we need more nice restaurants. And that’s why I say: If we can go back to the OLD times, when we had a lot of restaurants, a lot of doctors. We had a lot of activity going on in the neighborhood.
We had some great baseball games; we had one of the first baseball teams, that was here in the area. One of our things that we’re very proud of: that we are very close to Riverside Cemetery, which is a historic cemetery. And in the years to come, we hope if we can make even part of our walks, and part of our historic walks, and tours of the neighborhood. It’s owned by Fairmount, and therefore they have let all the water gone. So it’s a dry cemetery. (Laughs.) But it’s still, right now, is very pretty, because the water—it’s been raining so much. We’re proud of the fact that it’s one of our historic parts.
[Whispers: “I can’t think of anything else.”]
CN: So, that’s what has defined it. And, what is enduring—tell me what is enduring about this neighborhood, YOUR specific neighborhood.
BC: At one time, when I first moved here, and we first bought the home, all the streets were two-way streets; all the homes were privately owned. Now it’s an awful lot of rentals, and we’re having trouble with some of the rentals, because it has gotten very—to the point where we’re complaining about some of the rentals not being enough—kept up in the neighborhood. It’s running our neighborhood down. So, we are working with that. So, we hope, with our Denver planning, we can do a lot for this neighborhood.
35:03 So, I try to work with all these people. I saw Tim Watkins the other day, I talked to him, and I said: I don’t want to go to the C-DOT meeting; I don’t like what C-DOT’s doing to me. He says, “No. You come, and maybe we’ll make a birthday cake for you.” (Laughs.)
CN: There you go.
BC: But I feel very privileged to live in this neighborhood; I would not have lived in any other neighborhood; I’m very happy with it. My children both live in the Denver area. I see them a lot, but they do not participate in the activities in the area. They are more in Arvada area.
But they did grow up here, and always think very highly of the neighborhood—and still have friends that they see.
CN: Well, do you want to look over your notes and see if there’s anything else that you want to say?
BC: (Reading her notes.) Let’s see. (Long pause.) I did mention, I believe, that the families are moving back in, that had moved out at one time. And that’s very good. (Long pause; looking over notes.) You mentioned the noise of the neighborhood? We have the food carts; we have a lot of bicycles, a LOT of bicycles. I think it’s because, a lot of times, people just lose their drivers license and they don’t have a car! But, we do have lots of bicycles.
A lot of restaurants, which are all—they’re all Mexican restaurants. Um. (Pause.) I think that’s about it.
CN: Okay.
BC: But I want to help build my community, all I can.
CN: Well, I really appreciate that you are taking time to do this interview. And so, happy birthday –early.
BC: Thank you! (Laughing.)
37:34 [End of recording. End of interview.]

Oral History Interview with Bettie Cram
September 14, 2013
Interviewer: Cyns Nelson
Interview Transcribed by Cyns Nelson
[Interview takes place at the Valdez-Perry Branch Library in Denver, Colorado.]
00:00 CN: Today is September 14, 2013. My name is Cyns Nelson, and I’m conducting oral histories with residents from the Globeville, Elyria, and Swansea neighborhoods. This interview is part of the Denver Public Library’s “Creating Your Community” project, and the oral history will be archived with the Western History Department. Right now I’m talking with Bettie Cram, a longtime resident of the Swansea neighborhood.
So start, Bettie, by telling me your full name, and tell me when and where you were born.
BC: My name is Bettie Cram. I was a Johnson before I married, and I was born September 18th, 1922. So next week I will be 91 years old. (Light laugh.) I grew up on a farm in Niwot, Colorado. It was just a very lovely time, and very wholesome, happy childhood. It was not a rich childhood. But growing up on the farm is very, very wonderful for children.
I came into Denver when I was out of high school. I had a few jobs, and then finally—the one job that I’m so proud of is: I started working with the railroads, which was a part of the Western weighing [?] and part of the Livestock Exchange Group. So, where they weighed the cattle and numbered the cattle. So I worked for the railroads for a while, which was very nice. And then I went on to work in different areas of the Livestock Exchange Building, and went to the commission companies who were kind of the middlemen. The farmers would bring in their cattle, consign them to a commission company—they would get sold—and we would figure the profits and give their money. It was a wonderful life. I enjoyed it.
The Livestock Exchange Building, which is now a historic building, had—just like a little city. We had our lawyers; we had our banks; we had the restaurants; we had the Western Union; we had our own radio station. A man by the name of Evan Slack—and I believe he’s still alive—was our broadcaster. And the lady that worked in the offices where we were—her name was Jackie O’Keefe—and it was a delightful time.
I worked there for several years.
CN: What time period was this?
BC: It was 19—I started work about 1941, and as—I worked there, then I met one of the local cowboys. (Laughs.) And I married one of the local cowboys. We raised two children—two girls—in this area.
CN: What was your husband’s name?
BC: Eddie Cram. (Pause for water.) We raised our children here, and in time, then, we bought a home over in Swansea, 4341 Josephine Street, which I still live in. He passed away several years ago. It’s been a delightful time. I work very hard, all I can, with the neighborhood. I try to give my efforts to the neighborhood. So it’s been a very fun time. Everything I do, I try to include in the neighborhood. I use all the local laborers I can. In fact, when my one girl was born, we had—there were a lot of doctors at that time in the Elyria area, and I had one of the doctors there.
Backing up to when I worked in the Livestock Exchange Building—it was for several years, until finally the live stock business fell down. When I worked at the stockyards, we would count—get the count—of the cattle. On a Monday we would get over 40,000 cattle in one day: 20,000 sheep; 20,000 hogs. In the fall, it was a wonderful place to work. Then they had the packing houses, and they would ship them right over to the packing house.
And then, finally, everything got kind of automated and it kind of changed a lot.
05:06 The packing houses, eventually, quit, because it got very modernistic. It was such a shame, because all of the workers in the packing houses and in the Livestock Exchange Building—most of the people were from this area. On their lunch hours, they would ride their horses home—and it was just a fun, fun time that I felt I experienced in those years. (Pause.)
After the packing houses closed down, Elyria really kind of fell apart.
CN: And when was it that—
BC: It was probably in the early ‘60s—so, they did work for a long time. But it was probably the early ‘60s that they ended. Everything got computerized—so, I worked other places here in the area. So I did always work in this area. I worked at one of the local Denver Dodge Trucks that are here; and I worked at some of the truck lines here. So, it’s always been business in this area.
As it went down—because the businesses went out so much, many, many people moved. And the stock yards were expanding at this time, so they took over a lot of the houses—made their parking lots. So it did take a lot of the houses. And a lot of the people moved out. But as I notice now, it’s a delight to see them. The family of these people that moved out are often coming back and moving into the same houses.
As time went on, in the area, they did build—in the 1960s—is when they built the first elevated highway, I-70. And it devastated, pretty much devastated, a lot of the town. They took out several houses. But it was a needed highway. It took about four years to build, and it caused a lot of chaos in the neighborhood. One of my daughters was working at one of the local stores, at the Josephine shopping center, which is still a working shopping center. She worked in the little boutique—little gift shop there—and it’s always been a delightful time. She looks back on that as a lot of fun, too.
I’ve always been—invested my time in the neighborhood, and therefore: One of our historic buildings is our church. We have a little church in Elyria, on 4729 Vine Street.
CN: What’s the name?
BC: Pilgrim Congregational Church. And it is still a good, working church. We have a wonderful pastor, and we work well with the neighborhood. It was started in this neighborhood in 1881, in a tent, where the Coliseum now is. In time, the wind blew the tent down, so the men of the church moved the church up on Vine Street. And it’s always been on Vine Street every since. So, it’s one of our historic places.
The other historic place, I would say, would be the Livestock Exchange Building—it’s historic. Everything else historic has kind of disappeared. We had a horse-and-mule barn when I was working down at the stockyards, that was a delight to work in, just to see it work. They had auctions every day—ran the horses through the auction—and in fact, the last horses from World War II, that were used in an army, were sold out—were auctioned off—at the horse-and-mule barn. Part of it was incorporated into one of the sales bars down at the stockyard area right now. So, it did find its home; and it’s still here.
09:58 Restaurants in the Livestock Exchange Building were great. I worked at one place called the Lowell Commission Company, and met many, many wonderful people that I’m still acquainted with. Many of the people that worked in the area have come back into the neighborhood, as I mentioned before.
Then, we kind of move on to Swansea, which was—at the time Elyria was started, it was plotted in 1881, as its own city. Then, in order to function better with their water and their electricity, they incorporated into Denver in about 1905. So it was its own city. But Swansea was kind of a little—how it evolved, I don’t know—but it was at one time—it is on the east side of York Street, and it was more or less just an area that had five dairies in it, and a lot of vegetable gardens. And the people that I used to know that were there said: “We could look over, and it was just nothing but beautiful vegetable gardens and the dairies.” In fact, up even into the 1960s, we could go to one of the dairies and buy raw milk. So they did have—the dairies lasted quite a while.
There was a man in the area that was called—started a company called Winston Waterworks, and he did wells. To this day, we are still having—some of these wells, that he dug, are still working in the area. In fact, there was a house that I visited that said: At one time, in our backyard, this well—this water—kept coming up, and they didn’t know where it came from. So they kept piling dirt in it until finally it stopped. (Laughing.) They filled it up. But it was one of the old wells from the Winston water company.
Part of the neighborhood is still here. It has changed so much. Swansea, after the dairies kind of stopped, they started building the new homes. There are a lot of older homes over there now; but they started building the new homes in the 1940s. As they build block by block, it was very interesting—because even at that time, people would buy the home, build a home, and they would have their own cows in their backyard. It was very much of a farmers’ area, still.
Then (pause) as we went on with the building—life went on, everything was fine, and then they built the highway—as I mentioned, one other time—in the 1960s. And it kind of split the town to a degree, but we survived. And now they are talking about rebuilding it, because the present viaduct is deteriorating. So they now want to build a new one, which is going to be a recessed area—which I am very much against, and I am fighting.
The recessed area will be 30-foot deep. It will start in Brighton Boulevard and it will go clear to Colorado Boulevard, and there will be no exits. So I am really against having this recessed. But, they’re going to build it.
CN: Your—that’s determined, for sure?
BC: That’s quite determined, for sure—even if I keep fighting with them. But I—so far, I say, the fat lady has not sung. (Laughs.) So, I am still fighting it. But they’re going to have to have all the local roads—as it is, the local roads run underneath the viaduct, so it works out perfect. But they’re going to have to have local roads on the side, because this new viaduct will be—new recessed road will be a good, over 10 lanes wide, which will take up almost to the library here [referring to location of interview]. So it will be a lot of difference in the neighborhood, and there will be a lot of changes.
I have been really trying to put my input in, because I feel like the neighborhood needs to stay historic; it needs to keep its own heritage; and by putting all of these new roads in, we are really ruining a lot of things. I feel that we need to keep our present growth as it is.
The one thing that I feel is our future will be—we have to keep that—I’m very thrilled that we’re going to have an RTD stop. It is a first of seven stops; ours will be at our local post office, and it will go north almost to Longmont. So it will be very beneficial to this area.
15:20 CN: Is that the light rail? Or?
BC: Light rail, yes. It will be a light rail. And then we will have—that is one of our big pluses, that we have to build our neighborhood with. They also have (pause) the National Western Stock Show—I am very, very proud of them—they have told me—Paul (thinking), I can’t think of his last name. The CEO of the stock show has told me personally: I’m so proud; I’m going to tell you something you’ll be happy to hear—we’re going to be here for another 107 years. (Laughs.) So that’s going to be good. And we’re going to help build on that.
They had a meeting the other night—they have incorporated a lot of people from CSU, and the veterinary works, and the businesses that they have there, with the horses—they are going to bring some of their business here. That will be a plus; so that will help build our area. So we have to focus on that. And that’s why I say: We have to keep this place historic. And that’s why I—I don’t want to build all these condos. They keep saying, “Oh, we’re going to build condos.” I say: Oh—no, no, no! (laughing) No condos!
And another thing that I’m very happy to hear is that we have a bonanza [?] in the Platte River—if it isn’t overflowing. So in time, in the future—and they haven’t even told me this—that they are going to have a river walk, like San Antonio. We’re going to have our own river walk down in the area. And that will be great. So, we have to focus on all of that. [Looking at notes.]
CN: I’d like to—well, let’s back up just a little bit, and you tell me what YOU would like to happen with the I-70 viaduct. SOMETHING has to happen.
BC: I want them to rebuild a viaduct and then still have the local traffic underneath it, just as they do it now. But, they insist I am wrong. (Laughs.) And I think they’re fighting me because they know I want it so bad! (Laughing.)
We had—I’ve raised the two girls here—it was a very delightful time, raising my children here. Elyria had their own little swimming pool; local people were the—Don Easter was his name, and he was our lifeguard all the time. We ALL took swimming lessons there. It was the place to go—except, the children got to where they destroyed it. We have—we have hard time in this neighborhood, because there IS a group of children that are just, a little destructive.
Well, when we started building Swansea, and it started building up in the 1940s, it was a very low income, and nice homes that were affordable. And because of that, then in about 2000, we started having an influx of the people from Mexico. And it was very hard on the neighborhood. They started moving in, and they would buy a home—put in three or four families in there—and the word went out that they were going to make a “little Mexico” out of it. The neighborhood fought back. And, I’m very proud of them, that they did. We’ve assimilated now, and it’s working out fine. We see no clothes hanging on the fences and on the trees, as we had before, [as] it would be in Mexico.
So, they have assimilated, and I think it’s because the children have gotten—grown up in this area, and realize that this has to be. I have a hard time with the people that refuse to assimilate and learn English. This IS the United States, and we want to work with them as much as they can, but I feel that they have to work with us, also. So that has been—
19:55 But it IS working out. And we’re having a lot of Denver planning meetings, where we’re planning the city; we’re having a lot of RTD meetings; we’re having a lot of National Western Stock Show meetings. I have written that I want to be a part of them, but at my age, I don’t want to take a four-year commitment. (Laughs.) But it’s been very exciting, living here.
If they do build their recessed road, as they do want, it’s going to take over 60 more homes out of this area. Plus it’s going to have a lot of our land that’s destroyed. I feel like we have to keep it as historic as we can.
CN: Uh-huh. [Bettie whispers: “That’s about all.”] For people who have never been to your neighborhood—and plenty of people cruise on I-70 without having an opportunity to visit your neighborhood—describe it for me. Tell me—
BC: The neighborhood?
CN: Yes, exactly: What you see, what you hear, all of that.
BC: Okay. I love the neighborhood. It is—they call us depressed, but I don’t believe so. We are just a very—everybody gets along fine, it’s a great neighborhood. You talk about the sounds of the neighborhood? One of the sounds of the neighborhood is the fact that we have a lot little fruit, drink carts—they’re selling mangos—they put the mangos on, and then they put the chili pepper on top of that. It’s a delight. They have a lot of little carts running around. All the restaurants are all Spanish food.
They have—so what we are working, when we get more building, that we are going to incorporate a lot more things. We have no good shopping here—no Safeway store. We are working for that. And we are working toward more—Josephine Shopping Center, the gentleman that owns that, I work with him a lot. He wants to build his shopping center. But with the highway, not knowing what’s going to happen, it’s very hard. Because it’s going to be at least four years before they even—TWO years before they even get started on this, and then probably another five years before they even get it built. So it’s very hard.
But people are keeping their homes, and they’re moving—like I mentioned before—the families are moving back in here, that once moved out, they’re moving back in here. To my word, to my feeling, it is not a depressed area. I think it’s a very amiable neighborhood that—everybody gets along. We have no problems. There’s a lot of Spanish-speaking; but that’s what we have, and it’s a delight to hear it.
We just—I feel very privileged that I live in this area. We’ve had—one of our old buildings is Purina Mills, which has been here almost 100 years. And we have several businesses—Eaton Metal has been here about 100 years. So there have been a lot of historic things here, that we want to keep, and we work with them.
I raised all my children—had a very wonderful childhood here. We went from Swansea Rec Center—Swansea School—to Cole School, to Manual School. So, it’s nice that we—I think it’s great that we have togetherness with this neighborhood, a lot.
CN: Tell me all of the specific activities that YOU have been involved in the neighborhood. You mentioned your church—what other kinds of activities have YOU specifically been involved in.
BC: We have a neighborhood association that we’re working with. It’s helping the people. It’s—we have a building called the Focus Points, and they’re working a lot with the people in the area. We have a lot of our meetings at the Focus Points. Our church was built—I was telling you, the Protestant church was built in 1881. And then we have the Catholic church—Our Lady of Grace Church—which was built in the 1950s. There are a few other smaller churches in the area that have come up since. But it’s a very included neighborhood for keeping everything in its own area, here.
25:00 CN: What do you do for your social activities?
BC: I think I go to a lot of meetings! (Laughs.) A lot of meetings. We have—we have the Swansea Rec Center, Rec Center. We do have that. But, as far as—and that’s why, at one time, years ago, when Elyria was first platted in 1881, it was a very busy town. They had a lot of theater work here; we’ve had, some of our famous boxers was here, were born here. (Whispers: “I can’t think of his name!”) And we have—one of the best bare-fisted fighter that was very prominent here. I can give you the names later, if you need. But they grew up in this neighborhood.
And the man that used to have “Tool Time” [referring to television program], he grew up in this neighborhood. We do have people that we’re very proud of, that they were from this neighborhood. So, that’s why I would like to have this neighborhood revert to its past history, where we had a lot of businesses going on here that were neighborhood; a lot restaurants. And we’ll have our own little shopping area. I’m very privileged to be here.
CN: How do you balance wanting the neighborhood to remain historic with inevitable changes?
BC: Yes. That’s going to be very hard. I will, hopefully, think that the National Western Stock Show will help us with that part.
CN: Say more about what the plans are for that—that YOU know about.
BC: The National Western? Um, they’re going to expand. They were going to move at one time, because they need more acreage and everything is getting older. But they have decided they’re going to stay. And they’re going to expand into the area to the north of us, which is actually the boundary of Denver County. So it’s actually a boundary which is very important to us. Then they’re going to expand to the west and have a lot of their cattle down there. Hopefully it will build up our area. So great.
The only one thing that we’re having trouble with right now is the fact that we’ve got at least nine marijuana places within walking distance of this very area, here. And, it’s—people that do not like that. We’re working hard, but we haven’t gotten rid of them yet. (Laughs.)
[Whispers: “Can’t think of anything else.”]
CN: So, you’ve talked about some of the central issues. And, the future—what you would like to see in the future. Tell me what you think defines this neighborhood. Again, imagining somebody who has never been here, what they need to know about.
BC: People say: “Where is Elyria?” They don’t know where it is. And, they associate it as being part of Globeville. We’re completely different. Globeville is its own entity—they platted into the Denver, as a city, about the same time as Elyria did. And then they went into the Denver area about the same time Elyria did, also. But, Globeville has grown more. And then, we have Elyria as a small area—which, we are proud of, is the home of the National Western Stock Show.
And then Swansea is—kind of just grew on its own. It was—I had mentioned before—it was all dairies, and it is now all homes; and it’s very, very industrial around here. One thing that’s hard to determine, which, we should go industrial—because of the city, they like the taxes with the industrial part, more. So, we are having thoughts about what is best for the neighborhood.
Like I mentioned, we have a planning committee that’s working with us. So we have monthly meetings on all of this. We have lots of meetings.
30:00 The Swansea Rec Center is a main entertainment; the children do a lot there. They have a lot of games; they have basketball, they play a lot of tournaments there. There’s not too much for the seniors; it’s a little hard right now to seem to get the neighborhood together to build a big rec center. We just have not been able to do that. Why, I don’t know.
CN: Tell me what you’re doing this afternoon.
BC: (Thinking.)
CN: You mentioned, on the phone, that there is a bazaar, or something?
BC: Well, there was. But we had to cancel it, because of the weather. [Reference to historic rainfall that caused flooding throughout Colorado.] We—it was at our church—we were going to have a children’s bazaar.
CN: Oh. I wanted to hear what that was about.
BC: Yes. And we had to cancel it. We had some people coming in from Fort Collins to help us. And of course, they can’t even hardly get out of town. So, with the weather so bad—and we thought it was going to rain now, which, it may still rain today. So, we did cancel it.
CN: Oh. That’s too bad.
BC: I have worked in the neighborhood by being an Avon Lady for 25 years (laughs). So, I’m pretty well acquainted with most of the people in the neighborhood. And it has been, very much, a fun time for me.
CN: Name some of the people who you’ve been acquainted with over the years.
BC: (Thinking.) There’s the Damian family, who is in the Elyria neighborhood; the—I can’t think of any special, big families—Montoya family. Um, there’s people from the neighborhood that are working: The Arevalo [?] family; the Portales family. It’s just, a lot of people that I really enjoy the friendship of.
CN: So, you started to tell me what you think defines Elyria. Anything else to say on that?
BC: Well, Elyria?
CN: And Swansea.
BC: And Swansea. I think it’s integrated to the point where we’re very assimilated together, now. It’s working out fine. But they do request—and the people that come to the meetings say—we need more English-speaking things in the neighborhood. We need more stores, we need more nice restaurants. And that’s why I say: If we can go back to the OLD times, when we had a lot of restaurants, a lot of doctors. We had a lot of activity going on in the neighborhood.
We had some great baseball games; we had one of the first baseball teams, that was here in the area. One of our things that we’re very proud of: that we are very close to Riverside Cemetery, which is a historic cemetery. And in the years to come, we hope if we can make even part of our walks, and part of our historic walks, and tours of the neighborhood. It’s owned by Fairmount, and therefore they have let all the water gone. So it’s a dry cemetery. (Laughs.) But it’s still, right now, is very pretty, because the water—it’s been raining so much. We’re proud of the fact that it’s one of our historic parts.
[Whispers: “I can’t think of anything else.”]
CN: So, that’s what has defined it. And, what is enduring—tell me what is enduring about this neighborhood, YOUR specific neighborhood.
BC: At one time, when I first moved here, and we first bought the home, all the streets were two-way streets; all the homes were privately owned. Now it’s an awful lot of rentals, and we’re having trouble with some of the rentals, because it has gotten very—to the point where we’re complaining about some of the rentals not being enough—kept up in the neighborhood. It’s running our neighborhood down. So, we are working with that. So, we hope, with our Denver planning, we can do a lot for this neighborhood.
35:03 So, I try to work with all these people. I saw Tim Watkins the other day, I talked to him, and I said: I don’t want to go to the C-DOT meeting; I don’t like what C-DOT’s doing to me. He says, “No. You come, and maybe we’ll make a birthday cake for you.” (Laughs.)
CN: There you go.
BC: But I feel very privileged to live in this neighborhood; I would not have lived in any other neighborhood; I’m very happy with it. My children both live in the Denver area. I see them a lot, but they do not participate in the activities in the area. They are more in Arvada area.
But they did grow up here, and always think very highly of the neighborhood—and still have friends that they see.
CN: Well, do you want to look over your notes and see if there’s anything else that you want to say?
BC: (Reading her notes.) Let’s see. (Long pause.) I did mention, I believe, that the families are moving back in, that had moved out at one time. And that’s very good. (Long pause; looking over notes.) You mentioned the noise of the neighborhood? We have the food carts; we have a lot of bicycles, a LOT of bicycles. I think it’s because, a lot of times, people just lose their drivers license and they don’t have a car! But, we do have lots of bicycles.
A lot of restaurants, which are all—they’re all Mexican restaurants. Um. (Pause.) I think that’s about it.
CN: Okay.
BC: But I want to help build my community, all I can.
CN: Well, I really appreciate that you are taking time to do this interview. And so, happy birthday –early.
BC: Thank you! (Laughing.)
37:34 [End of recording. End of interview.]

Oral History Interview with Bettie Cram
September 14, 2013
Interviewer: Cyns Nelson
Interview Transcribed by Cyns Nelson
[Interview takes place at the Valdez-Perry Branch Library in Denver, Colorado.]
00:00 CN: Today is September 14, 2013. My name is Cyns Nelson, and I’m conducting oral histories with residents from the Globeville, Elyria, and Swansea neighborhoods. This interview is part of the Denver Public Library’s “Creating Your Community” project, and the oral history will be archived with the Western History Department. Right now I’m talking with Bettie Cram, a longtime resident of the Swansea neighborhood.
So start, Bettie, by telling me your full name, and tell me when and where you were born.
BC: My name is Bettie Cram. I was a Johnson before I married, and I was born September 18th, 1922. So next week I will be 91 years old. (Light laugh.) I grew up on a farm in Niwot, Colorado. It was just a very lovely time, and very wholesome, happy childhood. It was not a rich childhood. But growing up on the farm is very, very wonderful for children.
I came into Denver when I was out of high school. I had a few jobs, and then finally—the one job that I’m so proud of is: I started working with the railroads, which was a part of the Western weighing [?] and part of the Livestock Exchange Group. So, where they weighed the cattle and numbered the cattle. So I worked for the railroads for a while, which was very nice. And then I went on to work in different areas of the Livestock Exchange Building, and went to the commission companies who were kind of the middlemen. The farmers would bring in their cattle, consign them to a commission company—they would get sold—and we would figure the profits and give their money. It was a wonderful life. I enjoyed it.
The Livestock Exchange Building, which is now a historic building, had—just like a little city. We had our lawyers; we had our banks; we had the restaurants; we had the Western Union; we had our own radio station. A man by the name of Evan Slack—and I believe he’s still alive—was our broadcaster. And the lady that worked in the offices where we were—her name was Jackie O’Keefe—and it was a delightful time.
I worked there for several years.
CN: What time period was this?
BC: It was 19—I started work about 1941, and as—I worked there, then I met one of the local cowboys. (Laughs.) And I married one of the local cowboys. We raised two children—two girls—in this area.
CN: What was your husband’s name?
BC: Eddie Cram. (Pause for water.) We raised our children here, and in time, then, we bought a home over in Swansea, 4341 Josephine Street, which I still live in. He passed away several years ago. It’s been a delightful time. I work very hard, all I can, with the neighborhood. I try to give my efforts to the neighborhood. So it’s been a very fun time. Everything I do, I try to include in the neighborhood. I use all the local laborers I can. In fact, when my one girl was born, we had—there were a lot of doctors at that time in the Elyria area, and I had one of the doctors there.
Backing up to when I worked in the Livestock Exchange Building—it was for several years, until finally the live stock business fell down. When I worked at the stockyards, we would count—get the count—of the cattle. On a Monday we would get over 40,000 cattle in one day: 20,000 sheep; 20,000 hogs. In the fall, it was a wonderful place to work. Then they had the packing houses, and they would ship them right over to the packing house.
And then, finally, everything got kind of automated and it kind of changed a lot.
05:06 The packing houses, eventually, quit, because it got very modernistic. It was such a shame, because all of the workers in the packing houses and in the Livestock Exchange Building—most of the people were from this area. On their lunch hours, they would ride their horses home—and it was just a fun, fun time that I felt I experienced in those years. (Pause.)
After the packing houses closed down, Elyria really kind of fell apart.
CN: And when was it that—
BC: It was probably in the early ‘60s—so, they did work for a long time. But it was probably the early ‘60s that they ended. Everything got computerized—so, I worked other places here in the area. So I did always work in this area. I worked at one of the local Denver Dodge Trucks that are here; and I worked at some of the truck lines here. So, it’s always been business in this area.
As it went down—because the businesses went out so much, many, many people moved. And the stock yards were expanding at this time, so they took over a lot of the houses—made their parking lots. So it did take a lot of the houses. And a lot of the people moved out. But as I notice now, it’s a delight to see them. The family of these people that moved out are often coming back and moving into the same houses.
As time went on, in the area, they did build—in the 1960s—is when they built the first elevated highway, I-70. And it devastated, pretty much devastated, a lot of the town. They took out several houses. But it was a needed highway. It took about four years to build, and it caused a lot of chaos in the neighborhood. One of my daughters was working at one of the local stores, at the Josephine shopping center, which is still a working shopping center. She worked in the little boutique—little gift shop there—and it’s always been a delightful time. She looks back on that as a lot of fun, too.
I’ve always been—invested my time in the neighborhood, and therefore: One of our historic buildings is our church. We have a little church in Elyria, on 4729 Vine Street.
CN: What’s the name?
BC: Pilgrim Congregational Church. And it is still a good, working church. We have a wonderful pastor, and we work well with the neighborhood. It was started in this neighborhood in 1881, in a tent, where the Coliseum now is. In time, the wind blew the tent down, so the men of the church moved the church up on Vine Street. And it’s always been on Vine Street every since. So, it’s one of our historic places.
The other historic place, I would say, would be the Livestock Exchange Building—it’s historic. Everything else historic has kind of disappeared. We had a horse-and-mule barn when I was working down at the stockyards, that was a delight to work in, just to see it work. They had auctions every day—ran the horses through the auction—and in fact, the last horses from World War II, that were used in an army, were sold out—were auctioned off—at the horse-and-mule barn. Part of it was incorporated into one of the sales bars down at the stockyard area right now. So, it did find its home; and it’s still here.
09:58 Restaurants in the Livestock Exchange Building were great. I worked at one place called the Lowell Commission Company, and met many, many wonderful people that I’m still acquainted with. Many of the people that worked in the area have come back into the neighborhood, as I mentioned before.
Then, we kind of move on to Swansea, which was—at the time Elyria was started, it was plotted in 1881, as its own city. Then, in order to function better with their water and their electricity, they incorporated into Denver in about 1905. So it was its own city. But Swansea was kind of a little—how it evolved, I don’t know—but it was at one time—it is on the east side of York Street, and it was more or less just an area that had five dairies in it, and a lot of vegetable gardens. And the people that I used to know that were there said: “We could look over, and it was just nothing but beautiful vegetable gardens and the dairies.” In fact, up even into the 1960s, we could go to one of the dairies and buy raw milk. So they did have—the dairies lasted quite a while.
There was a man in the area that was called—started a company called Winston Waterworks, and he did wells. To this day, we are still having—some of these wells, that he dug, are still working in the area. In fact, there was a house that I visited that said: At one time, in our backyard, this well—this water—kept coming up, and they didn’t know where it came from. So they kept piling dirt in it until finally it stopped. (Laughing.) They filled it up. But it was one of the old wells from the Winston water company.
Part of the neighborhood is still here. It has changed so much. Swansea, after the dairies kind of stopped, they started building the new homes. There are a lot of older homes over there now; but they started building the new homes in the 1940s. As they build block by block, it was very interesting—because even at that time, people would buy the home, build a home, and they would have their own cows in their backyard. It was very much of a farmers’ area, still.
Then (pause) as we went on with the building—life went on, everything was fine, and then they built the highway—as I mentioned, one other time—in the 1960s. And it kind of split the town to a degree, but we survived. And now they are talking about rebuilding it, because the present viaduct is deteriorating. So they now want to build a new one, which is going to be a recessed area—which I am very much against, and I am fighting.
The recessed area will be 30-foot deep. It will start in Brighton Boulevard and it will go clear to Colorado Boulevard, and there will be no exits. So I am really against having this recessed. But, they’re going to build it.
CN: Your—that’s determined, for sure?
BC: That’s quite determined, for sure—even if I keep fighting with them. But I—so far, I say, the fat lady has not sung. (Laughs.) So, I am still fighting it. But they’re going to have to have all the local roads—as it is, the local roads run underneath the viaduct, so it works out perfect. But they’re going to have to have local roads on the side, because this new viaduct will be—new recessed road will be a good, over 10 lanes wide, which will take up almost to the library here [referring to location of interview]. So it will be a lot of difference in the neighborhood, and there will be a lot of changes.
I have been really trying to put my input in, because I feel like the neighborhood needs to stay historic; it needs to keep its own heritage; and by putting all of these new roads in, we are really ruining a lot of things. I feel that we need to keep our present growth as it is.
The one thing that I feel is our future will be—we have to keep that—I’m very thrilled that we’re going to have an RTD stop. It is a first of seven stops; ours will be at our local post office, and it will go north almost to Longmont. So it will be very beneficial to this area.
15:20 CN: Is that the light rail? Or?
BC: Light rail, yes. It will be a light rail. And then we will have—that is one of our big pluses, that we have to build our neighborhood with. They also have (pause) the National Western Stock Show—I am very, very proud of them—they have told me—Paul (thinking), I can’t think of his last name. The CEO of the stock show has told me personally: I’m so proud; I’m going to tell you something you’ll be happy to hear—we’re going to be here for another 107 years. (Laughs.) So that’s going to be good. And we’re going to help build on that.
They had a meeting the other night—they have incorporated a lot of people from CSU, and the veterinary works, and the businesses that they have there, with the horses—they are going to bring some of their business here. That will be a plus; so that will help build our area. So we have to focus on that. And that’s why I say: We have to keep this place historic. And that’s why I—I don’t want to build all these condos. They keep saying, “Oh, we’re going to build condos.” I say: Oh—no, no, no! (laughing) No condos!
And another thing that I’m very happy to hear is that we have a bonanza [?] in the Platte River—if it isn’t overflowing. So in time, in the future—and they haven’t even told me this—that they are going to have a river walk, like San Antonio. We’re going to have our own river walk down in the area. And that will be great. So, we have to focus on all of that. [Looking at notes.]
CN: I’d like to—well, let’s back up just a little bit, and you tell me what YOU would like to happen with the I-70 viaduct. SOMETHING has to happen.
BC: I want them to rebuild a viaduct and then still have the local traffic underneath it, just as they do it now. But, they insist I am wrong. (Laughs.) And I think they’re fighting me because they know I want it so bad! (Laughing.)
We had—I’ve raised the two girls here—it was a very delightful time, raising my children here. Elyria had their own little swimming pool; local people were the—Don Easter was his name, and he was our lifeguard all the time. We ALL took swimming lessons there. It was the place to go—except, the children got to where they destroyed it. We have—we have hard time in this neighborhood, because there IS a group of children that are just, a little destructive.
Well, when we started building Swansea, and it started building up in the 1940s, it was a very low income, and nice homes that were affordable. And because of that, then in about 2000, we started having an influx of the people from Mexico. And it was very hard on the neighborhood. They started moving in, and they would buy a home—put in three or four families in there—and the word went out that they were going to make a “little Mexico” out of it. The neighborhood fought back. And, I’m very proud of them, that they did. We’ve assimilated now, and it’s working out fine. We see no clothes hanging on the fences and on the trees, as we had before, [as] it would be in Mexico.
So, they have assimilated, and I think it’s because the children have gotten—grown up in this area, and realize that this has to be. I have a hard time with the people that refuse to assimilate and learn English. This IS the United States, and we want to work with them as much as they can, but I feel that they have to work with us, also. So that has been—
19:55 But it IS working out. And we’re having a lot of Denver planning meetings, where we’re planning the city; we’re having a lot of RTD meetings; we’re having a lot of National Western Stock Show meetings. I have written that I want to be a part of them, but at my age, I don’t want to take a four-year commitment. (Laughs.) But it’s been very exciting, living here.
If they do build their recessed road, as they do want, it’s going to take over 60 more homes out of this area. Plus it’s going to have a lot of our land that’s destroyed. I feel like we have to keep it as historic as we can.
CN: Uh-huh. [Bettie whispers: “That’s about all.”] For people who have never been to your neighborhood—and plenty of people cruise on I-70 without having an opportunity to visit your neighborhood—describe it for me. Tell me—
BC: The neighborhood?
CN: Yes, exactly: What you see, what you hear, all of that.
BC: Okay. I love the neighborhood. It is—they call us depressed, but I don’t believe so. We are just a very—everybody gets along fine, it’s a great neighborhood. You talk about the sounds of the neighborhood? One of the sounds of the neighborhood is the fact that we have a lot little fruit, drink carts—they’re selling mangos—they put the mangos on, and then they put the chili pepper on top of that. It’s a delight. They have a lot of little carts running around. All the restaurants are all Spanish food.
They have—so what we are working, when we get more building, that we are going to incorporate a lot more things. We have no good shopping here—no Safeway store. We are working for that. And we are working toward more—Josephine Shopping Center, the gentleman that owns that, I work with him a lot. He wants to build his shopping center. But with the highway, not knowing what’s going to happen, it’s very hard. Because it’s going to be at least four years before they even—TWO years before they even get started on this, and then probably another five years before they even get it built. So it’s very hard.
But people are keeping their homes, and they’re moving—like I mentioned before—the families are moving back in here, that once moved out, they’re moving back in here. To my word, to my feeling, it is not a depressed area. I think it’s a very amiable neighborhood that—everybody gets along. We have no problems. There’s a lot of Spanish-speaking; but that’s what we have, and it’s a delight to hear it.
We just—I feel very privileged that I live in this area. We’ve had—one of our old buildings is Purina Mills, which has been here almost 100 years. And we have several businesses—Eaton Metal has been here about 100 years. So there have been a lot of historic things here, that we want to keep, and we work with them.
I raised all my children—had a very wonderful childhood here. We went from Swansea Rec Center—Swansea School—to Cole School, to Manual School. So, it’s nice that we—I think it’s great that we have togetherness with this neighborhood, a lot.
CN: Tell me all of the specific activities that YOU have been involved in the neighborhood. You mentioned your church—what other kinds of activities have YOU specifically been involved in.
BC: We have a neighborhood association that we’re working with. It’s helping the people. It’s—we have a building called the Focus Points, and they’re working a lot with the people in the area. We have a lot of our meetings at the Focus Points. Our church was built—I was telling you, the Protestant church was built in 1881. And then we have the Catholic church—Our Lady of Grace Church—which was built in the 1950s. There are a few other smaller churches in the area that have come up since. But it’s a very included neighborhood for keeping everything in its own area, here.
25:00 CN: What do you do for your social activities?
BC: I think I go to a lot of meetings! (Laughs.) A lot of meetings. We have—we have the Swansea Rec Center, Rec Center. We do have that. But, as far as—and that’s why, at one time, years ago, when Elyria was first platted in 1881, it was a very busy town. They had a lot of theater work here; we’ve had, some of our famous boxers was here, were born here. (Whispers: “I can’t think of his name!”) And we have—one of the best bare-fisted fighter that was very prominent here. I can give you the names later, if you need. But they grew up in this neighborhood.
And the man that used to have “Tool Time” [referring to television program], he grew up in this neighborhood. We do have people that we’re very proud of, that they were from this neighborhood. So, that’s why I would like to have this neighborhood revert to its past history, where we had a lot of businesses going on here that were neighborhood; a lot restaurants. And we’ll have our own little shopping area. I’m very privileged to be here.
CN: How do you balance wanting the neighborhood to remain historic with inevitable changes?
BC: Yes. That’s going to be very hard. I will, hopefully, think that the National Western Stock Show will help us with that part.
CN: Say more about what the plans are for that—that YOU know about.
BC: The National Western? Um, they’re going to expand. They were going to move at one time, because they need more acreage and everything is getting older. But they have decided they’re going to stay. And they’re going to expand into the area to the north of us, which is actually the boundary of Denver County. So it’s actually a boundary which is very important to us. Then they’re going to expand to the west and have a lot of their cattle down there. Hopefully it will build up our area. So great.
The only one thing that we’re having trouble with right now is the fact that we’ve got at least nine marijuana places within walking distance of this very area, here. And, it’s—people that do not like that. We’re working hard, but we haven’t gotten rid of them yet. (Laughs.)
[Whispers: “Can’t think of anything else.”]
CN: So, you’ve talked about some of the central issues. And, the future—what you would like to see in the future. Tell me what you think defines this neighborhood. Again, imagining somebody who has never been here, what they need to know about.
BC: People say: “Where is Elyria?” They don’t know where it is. And, they associate it as being part of Globeville. We’re completely different. Globeville is its own entity—they platted into the Denver, as a city, about the same time as Elyria did. And then they went into the Denver area about the same time Elyria did, also. But, Globeville has grown more. And then, we have Elyria as a small area—which, we are proud of, is the home of the National Western Stock Show.
And then Swansea is—kind of just grew on its own. It was—I had mentioned before—it was all dairies, and it is now all homes; and it’s very, very industrial around here. One thing that’s hard to determine, which, we should go industrial—because of the city, they like the taxes with the industrial part, more. So, we are having thoughts about what is best for the neighborhood.
Like I mentioned, we have a planning committee that’s working with us. So we have monthly meetings on all of this. We have lots of meetings.
30:00 The Swansea Rec Center is a main entertainment; the children do a lot there. They have a lot of games; they have basketball, they play a lot of tournaments there. There’s not too much for the seniors; it’s a little hard right now to seem to get the neighborhood together to build a big rec center. We just have not been able to do that. Why, I don’t know.
CN: Tell me what you’re doing this afternoon.
BC: (Thinking.)
CN: You mentioned, on the phone, that there is a bazaar, or something?
BC: Well, there was. But we had to cancel it, because of the weather. [Reference to historic rainfall that caused flooding throughout Colorado.] We—it was at our church—we were going to have a children’s bazaar.
CN: Oh. I wanted to hear what that was about.
BC: Yes. And we had to cancel it. We had some people coming in from Fort Collins to help us. And of course, they can’t even hardly get out of town. So, with the weather so bad—and we thought it was going to rain now, which, it may still rain today. So, we did cancel it.
CN: Oh. That’s too bad.
BC: I have worked in the neighborhood by being an Avon Lady for 25 years (laughs). So, I’m pretty well acquainted with most of the people in the neighborhood. And it has been, very much, a fun time for me.
CN: Name some of the people who you’ve been acquainted with over the years.
BC: (Thinking.) There’s the Damian family, who is in the Elyria neighborhood; the—I can’t think of any special, big families—Montoya family. Um, there’s people from the neighborhood that are working: The Arevalo [?] family; the Portales family. It’s just, a lot of people that I really enjoy the friendship of.
CN: So, you started to tell me what you think defines Elyria. Anything else to say on that?
BC: Well, Elyria?
CN: And Swansea.
BC: And Swansea. I think it’s integrated to the point where we’re very assimilated together, now. It’s working out fine. But they do request—and the people that come to the meetings say—we need more English-speaking things in the neighborhood. We need more stores, we need more nice restaurants. And that’s why I say: If we can go back to the OLD times, when we had a lot of restaurants, a lot of doctors. We had a lot of activity going on in the neighborhood.
We had some great baseball games; we had one of the first baseball teams, that was here in the area. One of our things that we’re very proud of: that we are very close to Riverside Cemetery, which is a historic cemetery. And in the years to come, we hope if we can make even part of our walks, and part of our historic walks, and tours of the neighborhood. It’s owned by Fairmount, and therefore they have let all the water gone. So it’s a dry cemetery. (Laughs.) But it’s still, right now, is very pretty, because the water—it’s been raining so much. We’re proud of the fact that it’s one of our historic parts.
[Whispers: “I can’t think of anything else.”]
CN: So, that’s what has defined it. And, what is enduring—tell me what is enduring about this neighborhood, YOUR specific neighborhood.
BC: At one time, when I first moved here, and we first bought the home, all the streets were two-way streets; all the homes were privately owned. Now it’s an awful lot of rentals, and we’re having trouble with some of the rentals, because it has gotten very—to the point where we’re complaining about some of the rentals not being enough—kept up in the neighborhood. It’s running our neighborhood down. So, we are working with that. So, we hope, with our Denver planning, we can do a lot for this neighborhood.
35:03 So, I try to work with all these people. I saw Tim Watkins the other day, I talked to him, and I said: I don’t want to go to the C-DOT meeting; I don’t like what C-DOT’s doing to me. He says, “No. You come, and maybe we’ll make a birthday cake for you.” (Laughs.)
CN: There you go.
BC: But I feel very privileged to live in this neighborhood; I would not have lived in any other neighborhood; I’m very happy with it. My children both live in the Denver area. I see them a lot, but they do not participate in the activities in the area. They are more in Arvada area.
But they did grow up here, and always think very highly of the neighborhood—and still have friends that they see.
CN: Well, do you want to look over your notes and see if there’s anything else that you want to say?
BC: (Reading her notes.) Let’s see. (Long pause.) I did mention, I believe, that the families are moving back in, that had moved out at one time. And that’s very good. (Long pause; looking over notes.) You mentioned the noise of the neighborhood? We have the food carts; we have a lot of bicycles, a LOT of bicycles. I think it’s because, a lot of times, people just lose their drivers license and they don’t have a car! But, we do have lots of bicycles.
A lot of restaurants, which are all—they’re all Mexican restaurants. Um. (Pause.) I think that’s about it.
CN: Okay.
BC: But I want to help build my community, all I can.
CN: Well, I really appreciate that you are taking time to do this interview. And so, happy birthday –early.
BC: Thank you! (Laughing.)
37:34 [End of recording. End of interview.]